Washu's Laboratory
"Can you really cure Ayeka?" Tenchi asked.
"I believe that I can," Washu said.
"Out with it, Washu!" Ryoko snatched the little scientist by the collar and dragged her up. Washu regarded her with a sort of resigned, irritated look.
"Hey, Ryoko, are you drunk again?" she asked.
"What?"
"Because you really stink," Washu wrinkled her nose and wafted her hand back and forth in front of her face.
"Lady Shinku, please behave in keeping with your station," Ryoko had winced at the title. "Besides, it won't do any good to do anything to her."
"You have a point, princess," Ryoko admitted and set Washu down, not very differently. Washu wasn't particularly concerned.
"Now, can you explain what you've found out Washu?" Tenchi asked.
"Yes, please make yourself clear Washu-chan."
"I'll try," she said, calling up a holo-keyboard and typing in commands. A holographic image of Ayeka appeared, surrounded by a net of interlocking energy strands. "This is Ayeka's energy field before she burned out. The information I had at the time was sketchy so this might not be a totally accurate representation so much as it is a reconstruction based on my current findings." Everybody nodded as she pointed out the pale blue energy net on the three-dimensional hologram.
"Okay, now these strands are actually indicative of the paths of certain sub-atomic particles that surround the Jurai noble. These particles interact to produce the Jurai energy, though there is also some influence from the person itself that makes the effect very difficult to reproduce accurately through artificial means. In essence, a person is capable of sustaining a higher charge and producing much more complex effects that a mere machine."
"Get to the point Washu," Ryoko snapped.
"The point is, Ryoko," Washu typed a few more commands on her keyboard. "That this is what the paths about Ayeka look like now." The hologram changed to reveal a ravaged net. "In order to supply Ayeka with enough power for what she wanted to do, she transferred a majority of the particles about her into Jurai energy. At least I suspect that this is what happened. So now this little orbit here," she pointed to a line just above the hologram's head. "Has only one or two other orbits that it intersects with. Same here, and here and so on."
"How does this help, Washu-s..chan?" Ayeka asked. "You still haven't shown how this damage could be fixed.
"Yes, well," Washu cleared her throat. "When you attempted to channel just a moment before, most of the energy went into bridging these gaps here." She typed a few commands on her keyboard and pointed to three of the gaps in the net. As she pointed they were filled. "The energy was converted back into the necessary particles and so the damage was repaired."
"So all she has to do is keep channeling and it will repair itself," Tenchi asked.
"NO!" Washu and Ryoko snapped at once.
"The net was repaired here, Tenchi, but," Washu typed some more and the hologram changed again. "See here, the strain was starting to fray these other strands across the net as a whole. And as that was happening her vital signs went wild. Just channeling is not an option, it will do more harm than good."
"Then what is the answer?" Ayeka demanded exasperated. Washu was programming the hologram again.
"If we can supply your net with Jurai energy from an outside source," Washu noted. "Then perhaps that outside force can provide the energy needed to rebuild your net."
"I'm willing..."
"Not you Tenchi, it won't work. I thought about you and Ryoko almost immediately, but the energy fields are not compatible."
"What," Tenchi said. "Why not?" Washu was typing on her holo-board again.
"Well the short of it is that you are not pure-blooded Jurai noble," Washu said. "Not that it would really matter in a normal case, Ayeka isn't pure either. Ryoko seems to be the only pure bred noble anything of you three."
"I beg your pardon!" Ayeka snapped angrily. Washu continued on without paying attention.
"Watch what you're saying, Washu," Ryoko growled, disliking the reminder of the heritage that had caused so much trouble.
"But in Ayeka's case her non-Jurai noble ancestor was just an average person without access to any power source. Some where in your ancestry you have Terran spiritual power as well." Two new holograms appeared showing Tenchi and Ryoko with similar particle nets about them. Tenchi actually seemed to have two intersecting nets of pale blue and white. "I've watched, you can't channel Jurai power without channeling Terran power as well. It is not compatible with Ayeka's net."
"What about Grandfa..." Ayeka started.
"He's powerful, and pure blood, at least unmixed blood. He's also quite old, however, and I don't know if he could do it, for all that he is hale."
"Your Jurai power generators?" Ryoko suggested.
"Well, after confiscating and dismantling one Kiyone's new rifles," she said that with a touch of pride. "I concluded that the energy produced is too raw to be used for much in the way of practical purposes, just brute stuff like with Caine and then powering Kiyone's rifles."
The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a communicator screen from the Yagami.
"Are you guys still there?" Kiyone asked. Then she took in the scene and sighed. "Did something happen with Ayeka?"
"We were discussing a possible treatment for my...injury," Ayeka hmphed in response to being treated as if she weren't there again.
"I see, well we don't have too much time left, and there has been a complication."
"What kind of complication?" Tenchi asked. "I thought the Jurai Empire and GP had already said they didn't mind us talking to Earth's governments."
"Yes, well this is for Ryoko," Kiyone reported. The screen split to reveal Kamidake, the younger of the two knights.
"Princess Ayeka, I hope that you are well," he said almost immediately.
"I am as fine as can be expected, Kamidake-san."
"Has the great Washu," there was no sarcasm. "found a...treatment for your...condition?"
"There is a possibility, but you have business with Lady Shinku, do you not?"
"Yeah, what do you want me for?"
"There has been a problem with some of the Akuneko that were captured on the Jurai border."
"I thought they all went back across dead space," Tenchi said.
"Well, the survivors of the Shiroi clan that attacked the main force of Jurai apparently don't want to return," Kamidake said. "They seem to want asylum over here, and now we have reports that more ships are appearing. Not combat vessels it seems, but various civilian craft."
"What can I do about that?" Ryoko asked irritably.
"Perhaps when you speak to the governments of Earth today, you can arrange permission for a colony over there. On one of those unused planets maybe. This permission is really more of a formality anyway, isn't it."
"Unused planets," Tenchi repeated. "They're unused because they're unliveable."
"That's what terraforming is for," Washu announced suddenly, a particularly hungry gleam in her eyes. Everybody sweatdropped as they imagined what a Washu terraforming project would look like.
"Talk to Kiyone and Tenchi, they're doing the talking."
"Excuse me Lady Shinku, but they also seek your permission," Kamidake said embarrsed.
"Why would they want my permission," Ryoko asked.
"Because they are apparently looking to you as their rightful ruler."
"Well they can take that and stuff it," Ryoko snapped. "Why are you making this call and not some pointless little bureaucrat."
"Well...I was...concerned for Princess Ayeka," he admitted. Ayeka blushed demurely. "She was defending me at the time."
"Well this is certainly an interesting turn of events," Washu suggested. "Perhaps you would be willing to help with Ayeka-san's treatment?"
"Of course I'd be willing, I can come to Earth immediately."
"No, please sir, don't trouble yourself," Ayeka interrupted. "I shall come to you, if Washu-sa....err...chan has nothing against that."
"Certainly not, there's only so much I can do in this part of the galaxy any way."
"You're leaving?" Ryoko asked in disbelief.
"I shall be back Lady Shinku, you can have faith in that," she smirked. "Somebody needs to teach you the proper way in which royalty should behave."
"I do have one complaint," Washu noted. "Unless Ryoko is willing to let Ryo-Ohki carry us..."
"Yes!" Ryoko snapped.
"Then it is settled then," Ayeka sighed. "I shall be returning to the imperial planet, Kamidake-san, but please do not tell anyone as of yet."
"Well Tenchi, are you just going to stand there?" Ryoko tapped her foot angrily. "I thought we had somewhere to go. Oh never mind." She vanished, teleporting off to the Yagami no doubt.
"She's getting worse isn't she," Ayeka sighed.
"I'll try to talk to her as soon as I can get her alone again," Tenchi said, before dissipating into a series of blue-white motes.